La Mer, le Canal & les Pyrénées

Jacques Vert · Thursday at 3:14 AM

Hendaye

Heading around 15 minutes to the south from St-Jean you come to Hendaye, which is situated immediately to the north of the border with Spain; another pretty beachside town. Looking along the main beach with Spain in the distance...

Jacques Vert · Friday at 8:45 AM

The Sun King (Louis XIV)

Again from Wikepedia:

In 1659, Cardinal Mazarin spent several months in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, from where he would embark on almost daily trips to Pheasant Island in the river Bidassoa (near modern-day Hendaye) for Franco-Spanish meetings that resulted in the Treaty of the Pyrenees, one clause of which was the marriage of Louis XIV to Maria Theresa, the Infanta of Spain. Saint-Jean-de-Luz and its church were chosen to host the royal wedding on 9 June 1660. The marriage is one of the most important political marriages in history that brought an end to a bitter war. Today, visitors of the cathedral can see that the main door is bricked off. Two legends circulate this oddity: First, it has been said that the door the couple passed through was later closed to represent the closing of the troubles between France and Spain. A more popular theory among the locals is that the king, Louis XIV, ordered the door to be closed off, so no other couple could walk into the church to be married in his footsteps.

BTW, an 'infanta' is the daughter of the ruling monarch in Spain or Portugal, especially an eldest daughter who was not the heir to the throne. In Spain, only the heir to the throne is a prince or princess.

Louis XIV stayed in this house for a number of months during the signing of the Treaty and the wedding celebrations:

The infanta, Maria Teresa, stayed this house about 100m away for a few days before the wedding:

And the church where the wedding took place. As in Ainhoa, it is interesting that there are wooden galleries all around the inside of the church; something I haven't seen anywhere except in the Basque country.

And the main door that was closed off after the wedding:

FlyingFiona · Friday at 12:12 PM

I have seen churches with one tribune, but never multiple (and wooden) such as in these Basque churches you've shared. It's been great to see them, thank you.

Jacques Vert · 2024-12-15T09:22:18+1100

Bordeaux

From Saint-Jean-de-Luz we drove north to Bordeaux where we are due to hand our car back. I've been sitting on a few Hilton Honors points since before the pandemic but it's become difficult to get decent value since Hilton moved to dynamic pricing. I decided to bite the bullet and booked the Hilton Garden Inn for five nights; not great value but good enough. It's pretty typical of a Garden Inn...

The view from our room:

From the Garden Inn it's a 15 minute walk to the nearest tram station from where it's three stops to the centre of town (EUR1.90 per trip but you can get 24, 48 and 72 hour passes)...

FlyingFiona · 2024-12-15T09:48:07+1100

I'm shocked how busy Bordeaux is! Mind you, I haven't been there for (a-hem) 25 years. The whole world is significantly busier than 25 years ago.

Jacques Vert · 2024-12-15T10:00:40+1100

FlyingFiona said:
I'm shocked how busy Bordeaux is! Mind you, I haven't been there for (a-hem) 25 years. The whole world is significantly busier than 25 years ago.

I was surprised too. Most of SW France seems to have shut down once November rolled around but Bordeaux is very busy. Could have something to do with Christmas markets starting up or maybe something else but it is certainly very busy. Hate to think what it is like in peak season if this is their quiet time!

Seems to be quite a lot of Spaniards in town.

Jacques Vert · 2024-12-16T06:08:36+1100

FlyingFiona said:
I'm shocked how busy Bordeaux is! Mind you, I haven't been there for (a-hem) 25 years. The whole world is significantly busier than 25 years ago.

Some more examples of how busy it is in Bordeaux (and this is December)

And lots of restaurants have queues to get in...

especially the following one that only serves one dish: steak with chips and salad. No bookings accepted; you just have to join the queue. Every time we walked past the queue was down the street and around the corner...

Must be bloody good chips!

Jacques Vert · 2024-12-16T06:40:21+1100

La Dune du Pilat

Sixty kilometres southwest of Bordeaux is Europe's tallest sand dune. At around 110m it isn't as high as Dune 45 in Namibia (170m) that I climbed in 2017 but this one seemed quite a bit steeper (or maybe I'm just 7 years older)...